Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?
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Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?
A 2014 scientific study showed a certain trait determined whether you are conservative or liberal. Find out where you stand.
All the questions are related to your gross out factor at certain things (eg. maggots, diseases, death...).
They somehow take that, and put you on a scale between American Republican and Democrat.
WTF?!
You know what? Who cares.
Here's my result:
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I've spotted the
: try right-clicking the links on that site. (For the record: I got 20% conservative, 80% liberal — which always requires me to remember that in America, those two mean different things.)
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60-40 liberal on the bullshit meter (come on, I'm at least halfway to Lenin seeing how I was mistaken for him when touring Eastern Europe). I'll let the Last Psychiatrist handle this. That article is about another study by the same authors with largely similar conclusions (substituting fear for disgust).
There's a problem, though:
The typical use for such tests of startle and fear aren't to see how scared people are, they are used specifically to find out how scared people aren't. For example, they are used to evaluate psychopathy, and the results are the same as here-- psychopaths have decreased responses, compared to normal people, to aversive photos.
So which is it? Are conservatives fearful, or are liberals psychopaths?
Given the poltical discussions here, I'm going to say yes.
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Well, extremes are always bad, right? Someone who genuinely likes to touch surfaces in public restrooms is crazy; someone who feels like throwing up if he/she sees someone else eating an apple with fork and knife is also crazy. (In my opinion, that is.)
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@cartman82 said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
All the questions are related with your gross out factor at certain things (eg. maggots, diseases, death...).
They somehow take that, and put you on a scale between American Republican and Democrat.
WTF?!There's been quite a bit of research in the area; there's a reasonably good correlation.
I'm 52% Dem, apparently. Which I guess means by the bipolar standards of the age I'm required to be a bumboy for Bernie…
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@Grunnen said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
someone who feels like throwing up if he/she sees someone else eating an apple with fork and knife is also crazy.
That was the most bizarre question of them all. Why would someone be disgusted by that? Maybe a bit weirded out, at worst.
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@dkf said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
I'm 52% Dem, apparently. Which I guess means by the bipolar standards of the age I'm required to be a bumboy for Bernie…
Looks like you have to be some extreme snowflake who is grossed out by every little thing to slip into the red.
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From their "How does this work?" section:
A 2014 study concluded that people who were more prone to disgust are more conservative and tend to align with the republican party. But, why?
Some scientists believe it's ancestral and that the adverse reactions were used to protect primitive ancestors from contamination and disease. This way a person wouldn't confuse drinking water with dirty pond scum.
The study measured participants' brain response to "disgusting" imagery using an MRI. The study could predict party affiliation with up to 98% confidence. The questionaire on chartsme.com uses Jonathan Haidt's disgust scale in lieu of MRI and imagery, so results are likely far less accurate. Watch TED Talk to learn more or read "Yuck!: The Nature and Moral Significance of Disgust".
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This one rocks:
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Holy fuck, am I?
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@MZH said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
60-40 liberal on the bullshit meter (come on, I'm at least halfway to Lenin seeing how I was mistaken for him when touring Eastern Europe). I'll let the Last Psychiatrist handle this.
Hey, I haven't read this one. Thanks!
ETA
Read it, good as usual. For those lazy:
The graph shows that liberals and conservatives have a trivial skin response to neutral pictures, and liberals show no difference in response when confronted with a scary photo.
So the actual finding isn't that conservatives are fearful; it's that liberals seem not to exhibit much response to scary photos.
Perhaps physiologic responses are genetic, and influence your future political persuasion; or your political persuasion/upbringing affects how you respond to threats. Or, this insane idea:
Alternatively, political attitudes and varying physiological responses to threat may both derive from neural activity patterns, perhaps those surrounding the amygdala.
In other words, they're both genetic, and located in the pineal gland. Sorry, I meant amygdala.
The idea is so empty, so vacuous, that it barely can be imagined, let alone written down in the pages of Science. It is entirely analogous to this: brunettes are biologically programmed to want sex at certain times, and they seem to be located in the area surrounding Kansas.
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@cartman82 said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
That was the most bizarre question of them all. Why would someone be disgusted by that? Maybe a bit weirded out, at worst.
Also the condom question. The disgusting part for American conservatives would be the fact that there is a sex ed class at all.
I'm 56% liberal, BTW. For future reference: Another test that confirms I'm not an extreme leftist, as boomzilla and xaade seem to think.
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@asdf said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
I'm 56% liberal, BTW. For future reference: Another test that confirms I'm not an extreme leftist, as boomzilla and xaade seem to think.
Or maybe you just like gross things.
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@asdf said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
@cartman82 said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
That was the most bizarre question of them all. Why would someone be disgusted by that? Maybe a bit weirded out, at worst.
Also the condom question. The disgusting part for American conservatives would be the fact that there is a sex ed class at all.
I had a problem with this one myself, because I wouldn't be disgusted doing it, but I would be disgusted if I was forced to do it.
Pop psychological tests are stupid.
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Meh.
The study could predict party affiliation with up to 98% confidence.
Considering I have no pressing interest in either party, that makes me part of the 2% then...
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74 percent liberal. Which is weird since there are a lot of things that make me gag, just pretty much none of the ones listed above.
Also, I thought inflating condoms was what kids did after a sex ed class.
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This is easily amongst the most absurd things I've seen this
yearmonthmorning. Aside from anything else, the premise of the experiment itself only make sense if you assume the result, which goes against the very purpose of the scientific method. No one would do this experiment unless they were looking for this result, which means the whole thing is just the researchers trolling for grant money.
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@ScholRLEA said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
Aside from anything else, the premise of the experiment itself only make sense if you assume the result, which goes against the very purpose of the scientific method. No one would do this experiment unless they were looking for this result.
I'm confused. Isn't that exactly how scientific method works - assume a hypothesis, then test it?
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@Maciejasjmj In this case, it is the difference between 'propose an explanation of a phenomenon, and test it', and 'make an unsubstantiated assumption, and find evidence to support it while discarding evidence against it'. The former is the method of scientists, the latter that of conspiracy theorists, bigots, ideologues, crackpots, and religious fanatics.
And scientists, too, sometimes. No one is intellectually honest as consistently as they want to think; that's why reproducibility is also part of science.
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It says I'm 66% conservative. I dunno because I've no idea what's the difference between democrats and republicans.
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@groo said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
It says I'm 66% conservative. I dunno because I've no idea what's the difference between democrats and republicans.
That's OK, they only think there is one to begin with.
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@MZH said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
psychopaths have decreased responses, compared to normal people, to aversive photos.
@kt_ said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
liberals show no difference in response when confronted with a scary photo.
So liberals are psychopaths.
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@Grunnen I slice my apple with a knife because I don't like biting straight into them. (Although I will if there's no knife nearby.) Once it's in slices, though, I eat it with my fingers.
That makes me a libertarian!! ... or something.
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@asdf said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
boomzilla
Boomzilla's so far right that compared to him everybody's an extreme leftist. He gets angry is a city (exercising its generally-considered-conservative right of local control) decides to raise minimum wage for its citizens. Something that, until we had that discussion, I didn't even conceive of how anybody could object to that.
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@blakeyrat Ah... no, because the extremes in US politics mostly aren't extremes. In an ∞-dimensional political space of unmeasurable extent, US politics is a unit line lost in the middle somewhere.
The intensity of it can be over-the-top, but the scope of it is tiny.
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@ScholRLEA Yeah I was making a joke about Boomzilla being basically a Nazi but hey whatever.
Go post some inscrutable acronyms. Remember when ZP did the G3TPG2HPPHHG2 on DHZ after he talked to her VA? Those were the days.
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@blakeyrat said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
Go post some inscrutable acronyms. Remember when ZP did the G3TPG2HPPHHG2 on DHZ after he talked to her VA? Those were the days.
OK, I deserved that.
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@blakeyrat said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
Something that, until we had that discussion, I didn't even conceive of how anybody could object to [increasing minimum wages].
Did loss of jobs, hours and staff perks come into that conversation?
Or were they glossed over as things that don't happen?
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@all_users The point is, I thought one of the big conservative talking points was about local control, so why would a conservative be upset about Seattle exercising its right to local control?
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@blakeyrat said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
Yeah I was making a joke about Boomzilla being basically a Nazi but hey whatever.
He's not a Nazi. He thinks that Nazi's are basically Democrats with better uniforms.
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@blakeyrat said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
I thought one of the big conservative talking points was about local control
That's something that varies wildly from place to place. In some countries, it's the conservatives/right that are the centralisers and the liberals/left who seek to decentralise. That it is the way it is in the US is just “local” happenstance, merely a feature of how history played out.
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@ScholRLEA said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
Ah... no, because the extremes in US politics mostly aren't extremes.
I disagree. There are definitely extremes in US politics. Maybe they're arguing about the wrong things in your opinion, but both political parties - especially the Republican party* - support some pretty extreme ideas from time to time.
*Not saying there are no extreme leftists in the US, but they don't seem to be in powerful positions in the Democratic party.
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@HardwareGeek said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
@MZH said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
psychopaths have decreased responses, compared to normal people, to aversive photos.
@kt_ said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
liberals show no difference in response when confronted with a scary photo.
So liberals are psychopaths.
I might be
ing, but that's not the point. The point is that the way those findings were presented in the original paper (and then reported by media) looks backwards and that ideas presented as to where this comes from are stupid.Also:
I tried to find some of the pics this study used, this is one NPR had:
What strikes me about the "fear content" of this photo is that it is not immediate. Your eyes are drawn to her eyes and her mouth, and then later you see the spider that gives you the ugh feeling. I wonder-- and I'd need to see the other photos-- if all of them do not require such a two step perception, and if that isn't the basis for the difference in fear responses. (e.g. uncanny.) Is it the "wrongness" of the pic-- spiders aren't supposed to be that big, or on someone's face? Or is it the (seeming) powerlessness of it--all she can do is scream? How would the reactions be different if the woman was smiling?
It's an interesting article. :)
BTW, the linked post is from 2008, so he was definitely writing about another study, since the test is based on a one from 2014.
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(14)01213-5.pdf
Filed under: I miss this guy...
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@asdf It's normal for a large political party to have at least one crazy wing. (Most small parties are nothing but the crazies FWIW.) But most large parties keep the crazies out of the way of the real power. The problem with the Republicans currently is that they've got the some of the loonier factions in charge, particularly at the levels that select candidates to state legislatures (and by extension, to Congress). Key problems are things like a disregard for evidence-based policy (
) and extreme unwillingness to be seen negotiating with the opposing party on virtually any matter, destroying the possibility of bipartisan action on almost anything, even if such would be strongly to the good of the nation. That's very dangerous because it encourages a demagogue to say that they'll get rid of all of that and do the things that are necessary because Congress won't and for them to be somewhat right, leaving someone in charge without a good way to remove them (as they're already not operating according to the current Constitution).You can see some parallels with Europe in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Of course the details aren't the same, they never are, but the danger really is there. I want to be wrong on this!
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@dkf said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
I want to be wrong on this!
Oh, I know the feeling. And the USA are by far not the only country I'm worried about at the moment. The Brexit destabilizes Europe, the current Polish government has basically abolished the constitutional democracy and the Turkish-Kurdish conflict as well as the inner-Turkish conflict between government and opposition have now arrived in German cities. We have "fun" times ahead of us, on both sides of the pond.
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Surprised only that it worked.
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@dkf It has also had the effect of driving some of the Left into the hands of equally radical (by American standards, not by anyone else's) leftists, which has further eroded any attempt at compromise - not because the positions are really very different, in an absolute sense, but because the positions have hardened like concrete and all hope of dialog has been replaced by trolling and name-calling.
Mind you, the country has had much worse in the past. The entire 1828 election hinged on whether you thought Rachael Jackson was an adulterer and whether Henry Clay had committed a crime in arranging John Quincy Adam's win in 1824, while the main platform in the 1840 election was 'Martin van Ruin is a rich prick, vote for the salt-of-the-earth Old Tippecanoe instead" (which is even funnier when you learn that Van Buren's family were poor bouwerijn in the Albany, NY area when he was a child, while Harrison was a Tidewater aristocrat by birth). That's not even getting into the 1856 and 1860 elections, which were little short of being dress rehearsals for the US Civil War.
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@boomzilla, will you do the test to satisfy our curiosity?
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Am I supposed to answer yes if I see that right now? I'm inside on my computer. How could I see an outdoor garbage pail?
Edit: OH they changed what the buttons mean for that question. All the other ones had been agree-disagree.
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@ben_lubar said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
I'm inside on my computer. How could I see an outdoor garbage pail?
To identify if you are hallucinating, that would be a clear signal that you are an [insert ideology here].
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@cartman82 said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
WTF?!
Yay, another online survey POC. Well, whatever...
Considering I don't have a party affiliation at the moment (never got into it), I guess... I'll... um, I suppose I have a new party?
Huh. Merry Christmas?
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@HardwareGeek said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
So liberals are psychopaths.
Oye!
@kt_ said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
Also:
I tried to find some of the pics this study used, this is one NPR had:
What strikes me about the "fear content" of this photo is that it is not immediate. Your eyes are drawn to her eyes and her mouth, and then later you see the spider that gives you the ugh feeling. I wonder-- and I'd need to see the other photos-- if all of them do not require such a two step perception, and if that isn't the basis for the difference in fear responses. (e.g. uncanny.) Is it the "wrongness" of the pic-- spiders aren't supposed to be that big, or on someone's face? Or is it the (seeming) powerlessness of it--all she can do is scream? How would the reactions be different if the woman was smiling?
Wait, that's a spider? Oh, ok, now I see it. First glance said it was a type 2B external implant that hasn't been correctly installed.
My bad.
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@asdf said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
@dkf said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
I want to be wrong on this!
Oh, I know the feeling. [...] the current Polish government has basically abolished the constitutional democracy [...]
Heheh.
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@kt_ said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
@asdf said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
@dkf said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
I want to be wrong on this!
Oh, I know the feeling. [...] the current Polish government has basically abolished the constitutional democracy [...]
Heheh.
Meh. I'm still waiting for them to actually use that power for
. So far they've managed to door-in-the-face their changes on how the Tribunal should work, they've got pretty much unbound control over the country, and yet it's almost a year and we still don't have a Death Star.I'm seriously disappointed.
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@Maciejasjmj The PiS are fucking amateurs. Both Orban and Erdogan managed to take control over their countries within the boundaries of their constitutions. Breaking the constitution to gain control (which is basically a coup from a legal POV) is an amateur move.
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I'm not sure if some of these questions are just red-herrings that they just put in to throw people off, but a few of them don't make any sense.
The monkey meat one would especially gross out a liberal PETA member.
Eating an apple instead of a piece of paper... unless you have some sort of allergy or unbelievable hatred for apples, I don't see how anyone, regardless of their tolerance of disgusting things, could strongly disagree with that.
Some of them are based on superstition. I'd think walking through a graveyard is more about that than disgust.
Eating an apple with a knife and fork doesn't at all fall on the disgusting scale. I like to chop my apples into slices and then eat them as finger food. It isn't much of a stretch to use a fork on the slices. Plus, all it did for me was remind me of that Seinfeld episode with the Snickers bar.
Drinking spoiled milk is not only disgusting, but will give you a real fun day on the john. I guess I must be quite a conservative for trying to avoid that.
And stepping on earthworms, again, some crazy nutty PETA members would be all upset about that.
I guess PETA members should really be conservatives? I don't know.
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@asdf said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
@Maciejasjmj The PiS are fucking amateurs. Both Orban and Erdogan managed to take control over their countries within the boundaries of their constitutions. Breaking the constitution to gain control (which is basically a coup from a legal POV) is an amateur move.
Meh, it's kind of a dodgy situation, and IANAL. Honestly I think they're shooting themselves in the foot, since absolute power means absolute responsibility, and when things inevitably to to shit they'll have no one to pin the blame on for preventing them from realizing their plans. And since painting themselves as tormented underdogs with their hands tied by some evil forces has been their major strategy for the last 10 years at least...
I say, let them take the court over. If they insist on blowing off their feet, the best the opposing parties could do is hand them a bigger gun.
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@The_Quiet_One said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
Eating an apple instead of a piece of paper
I dont remember it being apples, I assumed I could chose any fruit. There are fruits thay I'd rather go with the paper.
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@asdf said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
@Maciejasjmj The PiS are fucking amateurs. Both Orban and Erdogan managed to take control over their countries within the boundaries of their constitutions. Breaking the constitution to gain control (which is basically a coup from a legal POV) is an amateur move.
One starts to wonder why it's this way. What prevents these forces of evil from seizing the total power and exterminating the lefties in the Pokemon-ridden Auschwitz?
Could it be that someone is reading too much of Wyborcza and media that report in line with them?
Nah! Can't be! Poland has a nationalistic government and is on the brink of destruction of the democratic system! God help us, I say! God help us!
filed under: Boziu, pomóż
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@The_Quiet_One said in Is Your Brain a Democrat or Republican?:
And stepping on earthworms, again, some crazy nutty PETA members would be all upset about that.
Urban people are probably more likely to react with strong disgust to stepping on an animal - especially something like a worm or a slug - than rural people.
No PETA involved here.
